Double Movements In Orlando

This thesis is a critical study of Virginia Woolf's novel, Orlando. Though in the recent years there have already been many feminist criticisms on this novel, most of them are based on the critical mode of French feminism, emphasizing the unstableness of text, studying a style of feminine writing or focusing on the fluidity of gender and subject. Such critical reading, I believe, has not brought out fully all the feminist concerns in the novel. It is the aim of this thesis to give a full assessment to Woolf's Orlando within the framework of Anglo-American feminist criticism.The argument of this thesis is that in Woolf's novel, Orlando, Woolf's handling of Orlando's sex change from male to female facilitates a double movement against sexism: on the one hand, it renders a dramatic record of a woman's struggling against the social forces that tries to shape her to the Other; on the other hand, it creates an androgynous figure that stands as a direct challenge to the sexism based on false gender assumptions. The first angle renders a direct record of the protagonist's live experience as a woman following his/her sex change. Becoming a woman at the age of thirty, Orlando bears a critical adult consciousness of the imposing social forces on women; and having occupied a privileged status as a man, Orlando is more acutely aware of the sexism of the society which denies women true life. Orlando's sex change dramatizes this struggle as it makes the sexism of the society more blatant and the rebellion of the oppressed more strong. For this part social construction theory of gender is used toexamine the social shaping of Orlando's gender and also the individual choice in resisting the social forces.The second deconstructs the gender binary system, the basis of a patriarchal society, through its androgynous protagonist who constantly breaks gender norms. Orlando's sex change also facilitates the creation of an androgynous figure who stands as a direct challenge to the sexism based on the gender binary system by broaching the boundaries of genders. Woolf's design of the sex change plot is a strategy to avoid social censure as in Woolf's time, such gender-transgressing is still a topic of social taboo. For this section deconstruction is applied as a critique in supporting this point. However deconstruction on gender is integrated into the theme of the novel, constituting an important part in attacking sexism. The author demonstrates that from these two angels Woolf has successfully lashed a protest and attack against the sexism. For the structure of the thesis, the author starts a literature review of critical reception of Woolf's Orlando, showing the general critical practice with French feminism. In the second chapter, the author provides a comparison of theoretical approaches of Anglo-American feminism and French feminism and an explanation why the author chooses the former as the more promising mode for feminist criticism. The third chapter is devoted to the textual analysis of Orlando, which is divided into two parts: Orlando's struggle and Orlando's vacillation. And the thesis ends with a brief conclusion in the end.